Belts used in exercise equipment such as, for example, treadmills, have a typical useful life, after which the belt may fail or cause the exercise machine not to perform satisfactorily. Fitness facility managers can use information about the performance of their treadmills (or other exercise machines that may use a belt) to determine if it is necessary to replace the belts and/or the decks of the treadmills. Fitness facilities typically replace the belt and/or deck of a treadmill after an obvious failure in the exercise machine has occurred.
Belt disintegration, folding over, chunking out, etc. are typical indicators that can prompt replacement of a treadmill belt. However, such indicators often become apparent long after the belt should have been replaced. Replacement of a belt generally leaves the related exercise equipment inoperable during the servicing period, which may include waiting for an ordered belt and/or deck to arrive, waiting for a serviceperson to install a belt and/or deck, etc. Another issue with worn belts is that users can experience reduced performance on an exercise machine with a worn belt, which may cause the users to use another machine. However, users do not always inform the fitness facility of this type of problem. As a result, a worn belt may remain on a machine for an extended period of time, resulting in the machine performing less than optimally and decreasing the effectiveness of a user's exercise routine, the user's opinion of the fitness facility, the value provided by the fitness facility, etc.
One known method for determining belt wear includes analyzing a wattage reading from an exercise machine. For example, when a new machine is received at a fitness facility, the fitness facility may test (i.e., characterize) the machine and gather a wattage reading while operating the machine at a certain pace and mechanical load (i.e., user weight). Throughout the life of the machine, the fitness facility may, at any time, perform a diagnostic test to gather subsequent wattage readings. If any subsequent wattage reading is excessive (e.g., significantly greater than the wattage reading obtained when the exercise machine was new), the facility may replace the belt (and possibly the deck) of the exercise machine. The actual value of the wattage that is considered excessive is not a published, standard value, but varies among fitness facilities and also may vary among exercise machines. Further, the wattage value may be influenced by other parameters such as load and line voltage conditions. Additionally, to be useful, the test must be carried out using precisely the same speeds and user weights (i.e., machine load).